Join Jan Burke and DP Lyle as they explore the world of forensic dentistry with Dr. Mike Tabor, Chief Forensic Dentist of the State of Tennessee Office for the Medical Examiner. Learn exactly how forensic dentistry aids in corpse identification and dig into some of Dr. Tabor’s most famous cases.

BIO: In the spring of 1973, Mike Tabor embarked on a journey that would take him down a path he could have never imagined. With a freshly earned DDS, Dr. Mike Tabor left Carson-Newman College and The University of Tennessee College of Dentistry, and began his career as a family dentist. In 1983, Dr. Tabor’s work as a family dentist took a unique turn and he found himself immersed in the highly specialized field of forensic dentistry. As one of only a handful of forensic dentists in the United States, Dr. Tabor became a highly sought after expert in this field, performing identifications and examinations on homicide victims, as well as aiding police departments, investigators and medical examiners all over the Country in the prosecution of thousands of crimes.

In September of 2001, Dr. Tabor found himself in New York, at the site of the World Trade Center terror attacks, aiding in the identification of countless victims. For Mike Tabor, this infamous and historical event forever changed his life. As a forensic dentist, Mike was no stranger to the examination of deceased victims, but the horrors of September 11th would not allow Mike, the man, to separate himself from his work as Dr. Tabor, the forensic dentist. September 11, 2011 left a lasting and emotional impression on Mike and gave him a completely new perspective on life and loss.

Dr. Mike Tabor was a featured contributor and has written an entire chapter for the Internationally Accredited Textbook, Forensic Dentistry. He has served as the president of the Tennessee State Board of Dental Examiners, and is currently the Chief Forensic Dentist for The State of Tennessee Office of the Medical Examiner, and is an energetic, engaging and highly respected and sought after public speaker. He makes his home in Nashville, with his beautiful wife, Karen and their two snow white canine children, Mollie and Millie. He is the proud father of two grown children and the doting grandfather of seven adorable grandchildren.

The next time you’re in deep thought imagining what your protagonist can do next to draw readers in to your plot, think not only of ‘whodunnit’, or ‘what happened’, but also, ‘who is it’? Many a successful storyline has been written about the first two, but not so many where the mystery is solving WHO this John Doe really is. For now, let’s just explore some details of how forensic identification really works. Here’s how it started out for this forensic odontologist.

In the spring of 1983, I began to assist the newly appointed state medical examiner with the identification of a ‘John Doe’, whose body had been pulled from the murky waters of the Cumberland River, here in Nashville, Tennessee. The badly decomposed body was bloated, discolored and bore an odor that would choke most. Visual identification would be impossible. Fingerprints were long gone. DNA had yet to be perfected. Fortunately, the decedent bore a mouthful of expensive gold inlays in his molars that would uniquely differentiate him from any other person. That was my baptism in the world of forensic identification.

Barely two years later, I testified in Tennessee’s first criminal trial where human bite marks would be admitted in a court of law. Opposing my testimony as expert witness was Dr. Richard Souviron, Chief Forensic Odontologist for Miami/Dade County Medical Examiner’s office. Fresh off his appearance in the now world famous Ted Bundy trial, Dr. Souviron later became a lifelong friend and mentor. Bundy had become the first person in US history sentenced to death where all evidence was circumstantial except for the damning bitemark he left on a victim. All Tennessee eyes were on Souviron’s testimony, since Bundy had become well known for his serial killing rampage of over a hundred women from Seattle to Tallahassee. Souviron’s testimony was pivotal in obtaining a guilty verdict. The fact that Bundy had been employed at a suicide prevention hotline desk made this case all the more daunting.

Another notorious case in middle Tennessee involved the mysterious disappearance of the wife of a prominent Nashville attorney. Janet March suddenly disappeared in 1996, and her body has never been discovered.

Missing persons departments have worked tirelessly for decades. Since media presence was so high, any time bones were found, our medical examiner’s team was called to the scene. Many times, it was animal remains, but every time it was a dead end. After over a decade, her husband was the first Tennessean to be convicted of a capital offense without ever producing a body. Just when you think it is not possible, then the truth often takes a mysterious turn! It proves that oftentimes, the truth is stranger than fiction.

No forensic experience, however, would surpass the enormous identification task while working with victims of the 9-11 attack of the World Trade Center. I had the privilege of assisting the New York Medical Examiner’s Office in the identification of those victims. Over an eleven month period, forensic scientists identified 1,000 of the roughly 3,000 victims of that horrific event. A large majority of those ID’s were done by dental record comparison. As recent as May 10, 2014, random identifications are made, over a decade since the attack. There are still almost 8,000 remaining unidentifiable body parts stored at the ONYME. http://news.msn.com/us/9-11-remains-returned-to-world-trade-center-site#tscptme

There are three basic methods used to confirm the identity of an individual. Fingerprints have been used the longest and have become a very reliable method of identification. It makes one assumption: fingerprints are like snowflakes, in that there are no two that are exactly alike. But fingerprints are not durable in weather and environmental factors, and will disintegrate within days in the hot summer.

Around 2000, DNA became, and is now, considered the gold standard for identification. DNA’s reliability is unquestioned, especially since it is the only scientific method able to quantify the accuracy of its determination. There is one major drawback. The microscopic evidence is very sensitive to the elements. There are several types of DNA, and most are easily destroyed and can be lost within days after elemental exposure.

The third method is that of dental characteristic comparison. Like all methods, it requires the comparison of a known sample to an unknown sample. We must have dental records and/or xrays of an individual who authorities think it might be. The advantage that dentistry has over the other two methods is that human teeth are virtually indestructible. Most all petroleum based fires will not burn enamel, the hardened outer covering of our teeth. The dental restorations are equally as durable and will withstand all environmental decomposition.

Forensic dentistry has been used to confirm identity of some rather notorious individuals. Back in 1998, I was consulted by the state medical examiner’s office to confirm a dental ID on James Earl Ray, the confessed killer of civil rights leader Martin Luther King. Even though he died of hepatitis while in prison, and his face was readily identifiable, our medical examiner wanted certainty. He remembered the controversy with Lee Harvey Oswald’s body just eighteen years after JFK’s assassination. Naysayers claimed conspiracy, so forensic dentistry reconfirmed his identity following an exhumation in Dallas.

What case is the most bizarre mystery I’ve worked? It spanned over a decade and resulted from the murder of a John Doe whose body was placed in a car, burned beyond recognition, while the killer staged his own death. When his plot was later foiled, it took years to determine the victim’s identity. It was the first time in Tennessee courts of law where a capital murder hearing took place and no one in the courtroom had any idea who the victim was! Think about that for a minute!! This mysterious convoluted storyline gave birth to my first forensic novel, based on this case entitled ‘Walk of Death’.

Why do you do this? I get that question a lot. ‘I don’t see how you stand being around all that stuff all the time!’ Not sure I have a really good answer. The grossness of the endeavor is without question, but that is something that you can overcome. You almost have to look at the project as if you were dissecting a frog in biology class. I don’t mean to trivialize death but by keeping it clinical, the process is more manageable.

Although it sounds somewhat like a cliché, the one redeeming factor in forensic identification is the fact that we are able to finally bring closure to the families whose lives have already been turned upside down from the disappearance of their loved one. The confirmation that truly the ‘search is over’ is somehow able to bring some measure of peace to those families, is an element that probably cannot be completely understood, unless you walked in their shoes. The peace, that’s what I’m after!

Dr. Mike Tabor has served as Chief Forensic Odontologist for The State of Tennessee Office of the Medical Examiner since 1983. He is past President of the American Board of Forensic Odontology and Section Chair and Fellow for the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, as well as past president of the Tennessee Board of Dental Examiners.

He assisted the NYC medical examiner’s office after the 911 event.

Dr. Tabor is the author of his first forensic novel, “Walk of Death”, the story of a cold case murder involving forensic dental identification that took over a decade to solve. His second in the Chris Walsh series is entitled “Out of the Darkness”. Since entering the writing phase of his career, Tabor has become a member of the Mystery Writers of America, as well as the International Thriller Writers Association.

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The forensic examination of bite marks left on victims, both alive and deceased, is being brought into question. If someone has an unusual tooth pattern and leaves bite marks on a victim, it seems logical that a match between the tooth pattern and the bite mark pattern would indicate that this person was the one who did the biting. And that just might be the case.

The poster boy for serial killers, Ted Bundy, had an unusual dental pattern and was convicted in part on bite mark evidence. No doubt old Ted was guilty but was the bite mark evidence used against him reliable?

Bundy’s Teeth

It comes down to exactly how accurate these comparisons are?

It mostly depends on the “quality and clarity” of the bite mark and the skill, experience, and attention to detail of the observer. The key being that it varies from case to case and from examiner to examiner. Forensic science doesn’t like such unpredictable variability. In general, such variability means that either the technique is not useful or accurate, or the protocols for making the comparison are inexact. Time will tell, but a couple of upcoming court rulings could derail the entire process. We shall see.

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Forensic Dentistry
Forensic dentistry is not a new science, since it has been around since the civil war and refined during the late 1800s. Dentists helped identify bodies found after huge fires had claimed many unrecognizable victims, such as the Chicago fire, the shirt-waist fire in lower Manhattan, and the major conflagration under the tents of a Paris outdoor fair. A burst dam in the Rocky Mountains that killed over 500 people who lived in the valley below should also be included. In modern times forensics was a major factor in airline crashes, and of course 9/11.

The method that most Forensic dentists use now is to chart the mouths of victims who were too ravaged to be recognizable or have enough skin on their hands to have fingerprints. The jaws should be worked open enough so that the dentist could chart the mouth, and that X-ray films could be placed next to the teeth and a full series of X-rays could be taken. All abnormalities should be noted, as well as what teeth are missing, what fillings are present, what teeth have been replaced by either fixed, or removable appliances,and which teeth have had root canal treatment, or implants.

Once this process has been completed, the dentist or their assistant takes a history to find out what people might have been present at the occurrence, and then contact the various dental practitioners who might have worked on them, and request a copy of their records. If a match is not close enough for a definite comparison it can be confirmed with further DNA Testing.

If none of this is possible NCIS has to be contacted which would list all the people who have been declared missing, and many times the dentist can find a match.

If none of the above works, after a certified time in cold storage, the remains are buried in Potters Field which is a small island off City Island by convicts from Rikers Island, If necessary the bodies can be exhumed at a later date.

In my first novel, False Impressions, which is due out on August 1st, the main character, the irreverent Forensic Dentist, Steve Landau, performs all these duties in a much more humorous, but dramatic fashion, and could be an enjoyable, as well as educational way to get your facts. Dr. Stanley Woods-Frankel can be contacted via his web site: